Run-length encoding implementation in Python

run_lenght_encoding.py

from itertools import groupby

def encode(text):
    """
    Returns the run-length encoded version of the text
    (numbers after symbols, length = 1 is skipped)
    """
    splitted = list(text)

    grouped = [list(j) for i, j in groupby(splitted)]    
    
    encoded = ''
    
    for group in grouped:
        encoded += group[0] 
        encoded += str(len(group)) if len(group) > 1 else ''
        
    return encoded